Why me again? Nophel thought, scratching at the wound on his arm. But Alexia's Scarlet Blade training was already taking over. She threw him the knife as she ran past him toward the following Dragarians, and the two men carrying Rufus hardly broke pace. Nophel closed his eyes and plucked at the wound with the knife, and it did not take much to start the blood flowing again.
They passed beneath the arch and entered the huge green dome. Smells changed from the tang of water to the perfumes of plants and blooms, and the short grasses around their feet changed to a long, rough crop.
"Keep running," Nophel said, and he paused and turned around.
Alexia stood just downhill from the arch, silhouetted against sunlight reflecting from the wide lake, and something about her outline was changing. There was a shimmer to her, as though she vibrated against reality. And then the Dragarians rushing up the slope stopped and stared.
Alexia ran at them with her short sword drawn. She was screaming-a murderous wail that set Nophel's skin tingling-swirling the sword around her head, and uttering promises of pain in those unintelligible words.
Some of the Dragarians turned and fled this vision they had witnessed emerging from nowhere. One of them took to the air. It was a clumsy take-off, and his left wing caught on an item of clothing, pitching him heavily to the left. He emitted a cry not unlike one uttered by a rathawk and drifted low across the ground, the slope saving him from an ignominious landing. Another fell on all fours and loped back down toward the lake.
Three more picked up their pace and charged straight for Alexia.
"Not much time!" Nophel hissed. The two Unseen lowered Rufus to the ground, and while one of them grasped his arms to his sides, the other held his lower jaw and forced his mouth open. Rufus struggled, looking around wide-eyed and seeing nothing but green and the dome's roof. He must be petrified, Nophel thought, but there was no time for pity. He paused for a moment, taking a good look at this other abandoned child for the first time, this person chopped and cast out by the bitch Baker. Then he squeezed blood from his wound into the man's mouth.
Rufus could not see the blood, but he surely tasted it, gagging and coughing. The tall man forced his mouth closed and he swallowed reflexively, blinking hard as his eyes started to water. Then, somewhere in his fluid vision, he started to see the Unseen.
"We're here to help you," Nophel said, hoping the man could hear him already.
Nophel heard the clash of metal on metal and spun around. Alexia was fighting two Dragarians, while a third held back. They were soldiers, evidently, their muscled arms heavy and long, and the swords they carried were twice the length of the woman's. But though she had been Unseen for some time, she still retained her Scarlet Blade training. Fighting was what she had been bred for since childhood.
The first Dragarian went down, clasping a vicious cut across his chest, blooding spewing between his fingers. The second faltered, and Alexia drove in with her sword. Its tip pierced his shoulder and she twisted, eliciting a cry of agony and terror from the man's many-toothed mouth.
Alexia backed away from the wounded men and faced the third soldier-a woman with four arms and a blade in each. She looked vicious, but her lower two arms seemed weaker than the others, and there were wet, open sores where they joined her body. Badly chopped, Nophel thought. Not as good as my mother.
Alexia darted at her, and the woman turned and fled.
As she ran toward them, Alexia phased back to Unseen. She staggered a little as she came, blinking rapidly as if fighting off a faint. It hurts her, Nophel thought. Maybe she was too far gone.
"Let's go," she said as she reached them.
"Are you well?" Nophel asked.
"Fine, but we need to go."
Rufus Kyuss was staring at them now, the tall Unseen's long arms still wrapped around him. Though still visible, the differences in Nophel's blood-the White Water and the Blue Water-had worked on the Dragarians' god. He now had the potential to be Unseen, should they instruct him in its use, as well as the ability to see them in whichever state they existed. "Who…?" he asked.
"Friends of Peer," Nophel said.
"Is she still with that Baker?" Rufus seethed, his hatred obvious, and Nophel felt his insides glow. He could not hold back a smile.
"Come with us," he said. "We've got plenty to talk about."
"I don't need rescuing," Rufus said. "They need me here."
"But this isn't all about you," Alexia said. "Come, or there'll be no Echo City left to take you to."
Rufus stood up straight and shook his head. "I belong here," I said. "Whoever you are, I can't leave with you. Rufus is not my name. My name-"
"Fuck this," Alexia said, and she struck Rufus across the back of the head. He fell, moaning, and rolled, and she hit him twice more before he grew still.
The two men picked up Rufus between them. Then they ran, crashing through the foliage, ducking beneath trees' low canopies, aiming for the other side of the dome and taking the most direct path they could. That Baker, Rufus had said. What did he know? Everything? Nophel kept looking at the mysterious man slung between the Unseen, and again he thought, He looks nothing like me.
They were halfway across the green dome, heading for the archway leading to the first dome, when a loud wailing noise filled the air. They paused beside a small pond, brushing flies and bees away from their faces.
"What the crap is that?" Alexia asked.
"Alarm," Nophel said. "There are similar ones set up on Hanharan Heights. It's a call to arms."
"War," Alexia said.
"Unless we get out of here quickly, yes."
"He could stop it," the tall Unseen said, nodding at the man they'd dropped to the ground. "Leave him here… let them find him-"
"No," Nophel said. "He's too important." To me, he almost said, but he bit his tongue. Too important to me.
"And we're not?" Alexia said.
Nophel smiled. His face was not used to the expression, and several of his sores split.
Sweating, exhausted, they ran again, hunted by a people who had found and lost their savior almost in the same breath. Nophel knew that if they were caught, there could be no mercy.
And Rufus Kyuss, unconscious, remained an enigma.
Echo City awoke that morning to a glorious day. There was hardly a cloud in the slate-blue sky, and the sun climbed from out of the Bonelands in the east with the promise of warmth and comfort for those who sought it. The sunlight illuminated the urban sprawl of Mino Mont, sending the slum gangs back into their shadows and splashing against the stark wall of Marcellan Canton. At the pinnacle of Hanharan Heights, the Eastern Scope stared wanly across the city, directly into the sunlight. Its enlarged eye did not water or smart from the brightness, and it did not lower the faceted lid that usually protected it from such glare. There was a small crater in the bottom curve of its eye, and the sun failed to scare away the ghourt lizard that picked at the organ's jelly.
In Course and Crescent, Marcellan's huge shadow was thrown as far as the city limits, its elongated spires and towers slowly crawling back across the city as the sun rose, like the retreating fingers of some vast phantom. In Crescent, blooms turned their heads to the sun and prepared to watch it cross the sky once again, while in Course Canton, the squares, courtyards, and parks bustled with early-morning traders, food purveyors, and people on their way to work or school. The smell of cooking soon drifted on the air, wafting away the sewer scents of nighttime and the metallic fumes from the smaller industrialized areas.
On the tall walls of Marcellan Canton, Scarlet Blades drifted to and fro in preparation for the changing of their guard. It would be achieved in shifts, so that there was never a time when the canton was not protected. Some of them were drunk, and not only those leaving their shift. There had not been a war for a long time. Soldiers grew bored.